The year was 1530. The catholic priest called Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus said these so true words about being surrounded by less intellectual people makes one smarter than one really is. What makes man-kind one-eyed? It goes beyond physical disability, but mental, spiritual, and most harmful, moral.
Roterodamus believed that every man had the freewill. [Nothing was predestinated to happen. No fate, no destiny.] Even at the period of the protestant reform, he stands to the believe that every person makes what one believes is true, even if this believe is not founded in the pure meaning of the object of being accept as true. Does it make one right? Does it make one wrong? It depends on the point of view.
Being in the middle sometimes is not that bad. One could say that not having an opinion about everything is a sign of weakness. However, once the human being puts its faith on something he/she believes is true, it gets very hard to change one’s mind. Therefore, the person becomes one-eyed as can only see one side of the reality.
A common example of partiality here in Brazil is the soccer game. As in 2012, two teams were struggling to be the number one in a state championship. At a critical time in the game, a player makes a penalty against the team that was losing. Nevertheless, the team that was losing was giving the right to make a directed kick and bingo! Now, the so called loser was now the winner. Needless to say, the loser team said the referee was totally wrong, where the winning team said the referee was totally right. Who is right?
Not only in the soccer or any other games that one can see examples like the one above. Even more examples can come from religious belief. Muslims believe they’ve got the message from Allah right from their prophet Muhammad (19.6%, according to David B. Barrett, from the Oxford University Press). Christians on the other hand, believe that there is only one God, and its prophet (also God), Jesus (33% according to the David B. Barrett). Notices that at some places, religious believes are the cause of uncountable deaths – and this is for the cause of “god”. Imagine if it was for the cause of “evil”. In time: atheism is not to be in the middle of the battle. It takes more faith to believe that pure chaos created us than a creator.
The need to believe in something is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand one gets the satisfaction of being in a comfort zone and on the other hand one “loses an eye” and sometimes get enemies as well. Forgive me for being repetitious, but the only solution to this “one-eyed” problem is still the golden rule. Other than that, one should at least expose ideas only when asked for and always in the best manner possible. At the end, we are ALL one-eyed people, and whoever does not agree with me just proves my point.
Daniel Paiva 